Campbell et al v. Facebook Inc.

Filing 180

EXHIBITS re 179 Notice (Other),,, Exhibits to Joint Notice of Refiling of Documents Accompanying Class Certification Briefs and Evidentiary Objections filed byFacebook Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 26 (Unredacted), # 2 Exhibit 27 (Redacted), # 3 Exhibit 28 (Redacted), # 4 Exhibit 29 (Unredacted), # 5 Exhibit 30 (Redacted), # 6 Exhibit 31 (Redacted), # 7 Exhibit 32 (Redacted), # 8 Exhibit 33 (Unredacted), # 9 Exhibit 34 (Redacted), # 10 Exhibit 35 (Unredacted), # 11 Exhibit 36 (Unredacted), # 12 Exhibit 37 (Redacted), # 13 Exhibit 38 (Unredacted), # 14 Exhibit 39 (Unredacted), # 15 Exhibit 40 (Unredacted), # 16 Exhibit 41 (Unredacted), # 17 Exhibit 42 (Redacted), # 18 Exhibit 43 (Redacted), # 19 Exhibit 44 (Redacted), # 20 Exhibit 45 (Redacted), # 21 Exhibit 46 (Redacted), # 22 Exhibit 47 (Redacted), # 23 Exhibit 48 (Redacted), # 24 Exhibit 49 (Unredacted), # 25 Exhibit 50 (Unredacted))(Related document(s) 179 ) (Chorba, Christopher) (Filed on 3/28/2016)

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GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
JOSHUA A. JESSEN, SBN 222831
[e-mail]
JEANA BISNAR MAUTE, SBN 290573
[e-mail]
PRIYANKA RAJAGOPALAN, SBN
278504 [e-mail]
ASHLEY ROGERS, SBN 286252
[e-mail]
1881 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, California 94304
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
CHRISTOPHER CHORBA, SBN 216692
[e-mail]
333 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90071
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
Attorneys for Defendant
FACEBOOK, INC.

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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OAKLAND DIVISON

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MATTHEW CAMPBELL and MICHAEL
HURLEY,
Plaintiffs,
v.
FACEBOOK, INC.,
Defendant.

Case No. C 13-05996 PJH
PUTATIVE CLASS ACTION
DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON IN
SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK,
INC.’S OBJECTION TO AND REQUEST
TO STRIKE NEW EVIDENCE AND
MISSTATEMENTS OF FACT
CONTAINED IN PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY IN
SUPPORT OF THEIR MOTION FOR
CLASS CERTIFICATION

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.’S OBJECTION TO AND REQUEST
TO STRIKE NEW EVIDENCE AND MISSTATEMENTS OF FACT CONTAINED IN PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY IN SUPPORT OF
THEIR MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION - Case No. C 13-05996 PJH

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I, Dale Harrison, declare as follows:
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I have been employed as a software engineer at Facebook since August 2014, and my

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current title is Engineering Manager. I am over the age of 18. I have personal knowledge of the

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matters stated herein and, if called as a witness, could and would testify competently thereto.

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2.

I provide this Declaration in support of Facebook’s Objection to New Evidence in

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Plaintiffs’ Reply In Support of Motion for Class Certification in order to address some of the new

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assertions in the new Report of Dr. Jennifer Golbeck in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class

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Certification (dated February 19, 2016 (Dkt. 166-7 & Dkt. 167-1 Ex. 1)), specifically with regard to

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her new proposed query for ascertaining purported class members.

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Dr. Golbeck’s New Proposal to Identify Class Members
3.

I understand that Dr. Golbeck is now proposing that “[b]y starting with a list of all

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message IDs, a database query could be written that would identify the senders and recipients of

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Private Messages sent during the Class Period with URL attachments (and corresponding

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EntShares) . . . .” (Dkt. 166-7, ¶ 9.) This is incorrect, and Dr. Golbeck’s proposed query appears to

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rely on several incorrect assumptions.

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4.

First, contrary to the suggestion in Dr. Golbeck’s report, there is no single “Titan

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database” that can be directly queried for “Titan Records.” Instead, “Titan” is the internal name for

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the Messages system compromising an underlying set of databases (known as “Hbase”) and a set of

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application servers, which (among other things) are used to process data to and from the underlying

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databases. Hbase is the permanent storage for records of each action taken in connection with

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Messages, such as sending, deleting, reading, or otherwise acting on a message. Roughly 70 billion

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such actions occur every day. Therefore, since the beginning of the class period (December 30,

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2011), there may have been more than 100 trillion actions. These records are not indexed in a way

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that would allow them to be queried in the way that Dr. Golbeck assumes.

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5.

Second, there is no existing list of message IDs to identify those records that

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correspond to message sends (as opposed to other message actions). Therefore, even attempting to

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identify all message IDs would require writing new code to load and analyze each message action.

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Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher LLP

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.’S OBJECTION TO AND REQUEST
TO STRIKE NEW EVIDENCE AND MISSTATEMENTS OF FACT CONTAINED IN PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY IN SUPPORT OF
THEIR MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION - Case No. C 13-05996 PJH

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However, Hbase cannot be queried directly. Instead, new code would need to be written to operate

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the application servers to pull each record from Hbase and analyze it individually. To my

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knowledge, such a query has never been attempted. The only effort of which I am aware that

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required loading each message action (which was undertaken in order to migrate data to a new, more

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efficient system) took approximately 12 months to run and required dedicated Facebook personnel to

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monitor database down time, query failures, and other constant maintenance. If a person could write

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code that would be able to search through the data across these several thousand servers to obtain a

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list of all message IDs for messages sent from the five-year period class period—and I do not know if

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this is even possible, as it never has been attempted before—the search process may likewise take a

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year or longer to run, with dedicated Facebook personnel to constantly monitor it, and check for and

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address issues as it progressed. Again, there is no certainty that such a process could even complete

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successfully; as with any extremely large, distributed system, Facebook incurs hardware failures,

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upgrades or reductions in capacity, and other similar issues all the time. Moreover, Facebook’s

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efforts to operate its service in the meantime would likely result in interruptions and other errors that

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could prevent the code from completing and/or producing reliable results.

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6.

Third, even if Facebook could generate a list of “all message IDs” over a five-year

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period, Dr. Golbeck is incorrect that her proposed query would isolate messages that contained URL

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attachments. An attachment can be one of a number of types, such as a video, a photo, a URL, or a

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sticker, among other things. Therefore, identifying all messages with “EntShares” or attachments—

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even if it were possible—would not be the same thing as identifying messages that contained URL

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attachments (which I understand would be necessary to identify putative class members). Without

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actually examining the content of each EntShare, it would not be possible to know which of these

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types of attachments it represented. As noted, a particular EntShare could represent many other types

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of attachments in addition to a URL.

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7.

There are several additional problems with Dr. Golbeck’s proposed query. The

following is a non-exhaustive list:
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Facebook’s method of storing and representing data about messages and their
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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.’S OBJECTION TO AND REQUEST
TO STRIKE NEW EVIDENCE AND MISSTATEMENTS OF FACT CONTAINED IN PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY IN SUPPORT OF
THEIR MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION - Case No. C 13-05996 PJH

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attachments has changed considerably over the past several years (and throughout the

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proposed class period). Accordingly, any attempt to write code that would iterate over

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messages from earlier periods of time (to correctly identify those with attachments)

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would require customizing the code based on how messages were stored at each

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particular point in time. Therefore, efforts to craft code that would accommodate

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variations in storage structure will necessarily be vulnerable to error.

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•

Even if a given field were used over multiple years, there is no guarantee that it was

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populated consistently. How and whether a field was populated would depend, among

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other things, on the device from which the message was sent, the different possible

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methods of attaching information to a message, the different attachment types that

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could be included with the message, and the like.

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•

Information about deleted messages (beyond the message ID) is purged after 90 days,

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and therefore the results of Dr. Golbeck’s query (even if it were feasible) would not

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include EntShares in deleted messages.

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•

Varying user behavior at different points in time (including browser usage and speed

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of send) may influence not only whether an EntShare was created for an attachment to

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a message, but also whether a successfully created EntShare was properly associated

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with the message.

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I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the

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foregoing is true and correct and that this declaration was executed on February 26, 2016, in Menlo

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Park, California.

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/s/ Dale Harrison
Dale Harrison

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.’S OBJECTION TO AND REQUEST
TO STRIKE NEW EVIDENCE AND MISSTATEMENTS OF FACT CONTAINED IN PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY IN SUPPORT OF
THEIR MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION - Case No. C 13-05996 PJH

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ATTORNEY ATTESTATION
I, Christopher Chorba, attest that concurrence in the filing of this Declaration of Dale
Harrison has been obtained from the signatory. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of
the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 26th day of
February, 2016, in Los Angeles, California.
/s/ Christopher Chorba
Christopher Chorba

Dated: February 26, 2016

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DECLARATION OF DALE HARRISON IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT FACEBOOK, INC.’S OBJECTION TO AND REQUEST
TO STRIKE NEW EVIDENCE AND MISSTATEMENTS OF FACT CONTAINED IN PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY IN SUPPORT OF
THEIR MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION - Case No. C 13-05996 PJH